Downtown Bellingham Partnership hosts inaugural Wine Walk

The Downtown Bellingham Partnership hosts its inaugural Wine Walk, sponsored by Greenhouse and by D’Anna’s Cafe Italiano, from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m. Friday, May 8, in the downtown core.

Similar to the monthly Art Walk, people can enjoy a self-guided tour of downtown, with different retailers hosting wineries. Event check-in is at the Downtown Visitors Center, 1306 Commercial St. Here are the participating businesses and wineries:

Tickets are $20 in advance, available online at Brown Paper Tickets and at participating venues. Tickets the day of the event are $25.

Tickets include 13 tastings of your choice; additional tastings tickets cost $1. Bottles of the wines will be available for purchase at the Downtown Visitor Center.

People are encouraged to bring a wine glass from home. Details: downtownbellingham.com, the Partnership’s Facebook page and 360-527-8710.

Meet a nice person at Honey Moon

Jenna Bean Veatch, a performing artist whose last show, “50 Heartbreaks (And I’m Still in Love with YOUkraine)” played last year in Seattle, New Orleans, and at Firehouse Performing Arts Center in Bellingham, is at work on a new show, “You Are Not Alone,” premiering next year in San Francisco. That show, she says, is about the desire for human connection and aims to actually create connection in the moment by having the audience actively participate.

Veatch will facilitate what she sees as a more literal incarnation of those ideas in “The Not-Creepy Gathering for People Who Are Single and Want to Fall in Love,” at 8:30 p.m. Friday, May 8, at Honey Mood Mead & Cider, 1053 N. State St. (behind Pepper Sisters).

She says the event is for people who want to meet someone but who are turned off by the lack of human interaction in online dating, the “meat market” feeling of the bar scene, and what she calls “the surface-level schmoozing” at other singles’ events.

Veatch says one of her main tasks is creating a space in which people feel comfortable taking risks. She wants participants to feel safe enough to be a bit vulnerable, to be able to open up, and to show their “true selves” in a way that doesn’t usually happen at a typical singles’ mixer. She emphasizes that the event is not just for straight people.

Participants are asked to bring a notebook, and to be on time because it’s a structured event with writing exercises, opportunities to talk one-to-one, and chances to present yourself to the entire group.